The Finance Ministry has expressed its confidence of meeting the 3.2% fiscal deficit target for the financial year 2017-18, despite the low dividends from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and muted proceeds from stake sales in public sector enterprises till now. The RBI paid just Rs 30,659 crore to the government as dividend for 2016-17, which was much below the estimated Rs 58,000 crore.
Finance Ministry is upbeat about its revenue projections and believes that gains from demonetisation and curbs on black money will boost direct tax collections in the latter half of the year. Similarly, while it has not made fresh estimates for collections under GST, the Finance Ministry is hopeful that these too will be robust. Also, though just Rs 9,302.31 crore have been raised from disinvestment till now as against a target of Rs 72,500 crore, the government expects higher proceeds in the second half of the fiscal, from stake sales in PSU insurers as well as exchange traded funds.
The Centre has targeted a fiscal deficit of 3.2 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2017-18. With the advancement of the Budget, the government managed to frontload its expenditure and start spending from April that led its fiscal deficit rising to Rs 4,41,685 crore or 80.8 per cent of the full year target by June 30.
Start Research-backed Investing ...Now. Subscribe to Sapphire
MoneyWorks4Me is a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser (IA) dedicated to helping investors build long-term wealth through transparent, research-driven, conflict-free guidance. Founded in 2008, we started our journey as a Research Analyst (RA), providing deep fundamental analysis, intrinsic value insights, and long-term investing frameworks for Indian equities. In 2017, we transitioned to a full-fledged SEBI-registered Investment Adviser, strengthening our commitment to acting as a fiduciary—always putting the investor’s interest first.
To become India’s most trusted, research-powered fiduciary advisory platform—where every investor, regardless of experience, can make calm, confident, and well-reasoned investment decisions.
MoneyWorks4Me ensures this through: